


how long until spring? (i miss you)

by mindshelter



Series: you wait for fate to turn the light on [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, or something approaching it, pepper potts obtains one (1) emotional support spiderboy, spoilers for endgame and ffh!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-05 21:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindshelter/pseuds/mindshelter
Summary: It’s nothing personal – they just didn’t know each other; she usually belonged in another sphere than him, in posh galas, dull board meetings, catching snatches of sleep on overseas flights. He was decades younger, a burst of energy and intelligence that Tony wanted to hone, nurture, and keep close to the ground for as long as he could.So, when she approaches Peter on the lake house’s dock, both of them swathed in black and sorrow and asks if he wants to join her inside to see the message Tony left behind, he says no.(set immediately after endgame.)





	1. morning will come again

**Author's Note:**

> at last this boy leaves my drafts 
> 
> presenting: a friendship fic, gap-filler starring peter and pepper as they try their best to carry on living and breathing.
> 
> if you exist in the mcu and ur initials are p.p. you're in for a stressful ass life

Before everything, Peter wasn’t central to Pepper’s life. He was somewhere between that and the fringes of acquaintanceship, a perky satellite that orbited around Tony. She’d been curious – she knew Tony well enough that the newfound spark in his eyes and optimism for the future was thanks to one Peter Parker, as much as he had tried to downplay – but that was all. They exchanged pleasantries on the rare occasions of running into each other, almost always with Tony present. 

It’s nothing personal – they just didn’t _know_ each other; she usually belonged in another sphere than him, in posh galas, dull board meetings, catching snatches of sleep on overseas flights. He was decades younger, a burst of energy and intelligence that Tony wanted to hone, nurture, and keep close to the ground for as long as he could.

So, when she approaches Peter on the lake house’s dock, both of them swathed in black and sorrow and asks if he wants to join her inside to see the message Tony left behind, he says no.

He’s hunched over at the edge, polished dress shoes brushing against cool grey water, shoulders hunched. Most of the funeral attendees have dispersed, leaving the grounds deathly quiet. In the distance, the wreath carrying one of the first miniaturized arc reactors moves idly against the lake surface.

“Okay,” Pepper says, and leaves Peter be.

_

It’s autumn; the sun retreats behind the forest early in the evening, giving way to a clear, black sky mottled with stars – most white, some a faint, weak red. Faintly, Peter registers the buzz of insects flying around him. The air smells like shorn grass.

Even with an ache in his chest that makes Peter want to scream himself hoarse, abandon all pretenses of propriety and just fucking lose his mind, he thinks the view is beautiful.

He’d have never guessed that Tony would pick someplace so… quaint, close to nature, especially since urban, busy, _loud_ have always meant home to Peter, but he thinks he sees the appeal. Like being in your own capsule, carving out a little comfortable pocket of reality. 

Peter dips the tips of his soles into the water, ripples visible under the delicate light of the moon. Uses his sleeve to wipe half-dried tears and snot off his face. It’s pretty gross. He probably looks disgusting as hell, and if Peter ventures a guess the suit jacket alone would probably cost him a whole limb.

For however long he’s allowed to stay here, he can exist in increments. Bask in gentle starlight and focus on the eerie lucidity that comes after crying, the residual hot burn of his eyes and nostrils. No one has come to bother him, and that’s fine.

He’s too tired to move, too tired to _be_. 

Few things can beat staring vacantly at nothing, sometimes. 

His back is facing the house, so he hears May before he sees her: the thump of her heartbeat, steady but a little quicker than normal, maybe nervous, maybe tentative; her crunching footsteps against dirt as she reaches the dock.

Peter is almost pissed that she’s here for a short, shameful second before the anger in his stomach settles back to fatigue.

“Darling,” she says, kneeling next to Peter and running a hand down his arm. Peter chokes on his next breath and a new sob threatens to bubble up his airway. His next exhale is hitched and short; May grips the ball of his shoulder, tight. “Baby, come inside.”

The words are soft, warm, leaving no room for argument.

Peter’s hand is limp when May moves to grab it, but he lets her pull him up and guide him away.

He's too tired to fight.

The main floor of the cabin is vacant, everyone else probably gone or retreated into their own rooms. Peter shrugs off his jacket and settles it on one of the dining room chairs. The clock on the wall reads 10:58. 

Peter sits obediently as May sets some leftovers from the fridge on the table after giving them a minute in the microwave.

“Do you want me here?” May asks, tilting her head to one side, patient as ever.

“Your pick,” Peter mumbles back, voice nasally as he moves on to his second Kleenex.

May drags out the chair next to him.

Peter purses his lips together and closes his eyes tight, brows knitting together. A gulp makes his Adam’s apple bob, and then he’s crying again.

“Oh, _Pete_,” May whispers.

“Sorry – sorry, just give me a second –” he warbles, scrubbing furiously, shakily at his face with the remains of his tissue, inhaling with a wet sniff. He counts to ten, then to twenty, thirty, and keeps counting until his breathing settles into something more baseline.

What does Peter need? Not want – he wants to be alone, preferably somewhere vast and open where he can just wail without being embarrassed about it, where no one will look at him with sad eyes and frowns of concern. He wants a hug, but from someone who isn’t here anymore, never will be again. He wants _Tony_ back, to lie to him that everything is okay, that this is all some prolonged nightmare sequence, but -

What does he _need_?

“You need to eat,” May says.

His aunt’s shifted over so that she’s facing Peter’s side. Her voice is low and quiet, nearly a whisper, elbow propped on the edge of the table and her free hand tracing the cartilage of her nephew’s ear. She stays that way when Peter doesn’t flinch for brush her away. 

Thank God for May. Thank God he still has May.

Peter hopes she knows just how much he loves her.

When Ben died, the two of them had taken things one at a time. The priority: to just meet basic needs – sleep, shower, eat, get up – and figure out the rest from there. It still felt like stumbling blind, but a loose, barely-there framework was better than none.

“Do your best to finish this, okay? You can shower in the morning, if you want, but wash your face and change out of the suit.”

He nods, picking up his fork to begin prodding at the dish in front of him.

Peter chews mechanically. The food tastes dry and flavourless, but he forces it down with water, where it settles in his stomach like a growing stack of rocks.

_

The room left for him is upstairs, cozy and small, somehow still larger than his place in New York.

Which probably isn’t his anymore, he supposes.

His temporary suite is void of personality: there’s a plain lamp on the nightstand, a window on the wall the bed is propped at. There’s a long storage container of his clothes at the corner, delivered to him courtesy of Happy.

Slowly, Peter undoes his white button-up and removes the belt of his dress pants in favour of a soft t-shirt and flannel bottoms.

_(“What’s this?” _

_“Box of your stuff, kid,” Happy had said, more subdued and tender than Peter had thought he was capable of. He was older, gray and white hairs mixing with dark ones, hairline higher. It sent another crack through Peter’s already fragile mood. “Just clothes, for your stay at the lake house – we’ll get the rest of your things later on.” _

_“It’s been five years, what –”_

_“Peter,” Happy interrupted, calm as ever, “of course we’d hold on to your things until you got back.” _

_Peter doesn’t know how to answer that.)_

Like the night before, when he and May began their stay at the lake house, Peter’s hearing picks up the faint sobs from across the hallway. Each one comes out haggard and wet, a gag, like Pepper is trying and failing to keep each one down. It’s accompanied by the muffled wisp of a younger, wobbly voice trying to soothe her mother. They’re not a surprise anymore, like they were the first time, but it sends prickles down Peter’s neck and spine, nonetheless.

He burrows into his duvet, halfway to curling into a ball.

“Lights out, please,” he rasps. Darkness washes through the room.

FRIDAY has access and control over the entire building– but Peter doesn’t dare ask if there’s any way she can block out noise even though it has a vice-grip on his throat, because it feels like violating Pepper’s privacy. An admission, maybe, that a woman is agonizing over the loss of the love of her life, the father of her child, and Peter is effectively ignoring it.

Just another thing to feel like pure shit about.

Peter doesn’t really sleep, but he keeps his eyes closed and does his best to get some rest.

_

Pepper Potts is a whirlwind.

The paleness of her face brings out sickly bruising under her eyes, the wrinkles deepening as her expression scrunches while focusing on whichever task she’d given herself. The aura around her is stifling, sad. Every time she shifts or takes a few steps, Peter instinctively wants to widen the berth between her and himself. 

He suppresses the urge, though. Focuses on the knife in his hand. 

He learned from YouTube that proper technique is keeping keeping the knife tip firmly in one spot while moving the handle up and down.

Peter finishes slicing his first carrot into thin strips.

Pepper’s always doing something; taking a call, checking in on Morgan, asking him and May about their apartment suite preferences – how big, what noise environment, how old, which district in Queens – while getting a hold of a suitable realtor. Colonel Rhodes is helping her hold down the fort from all the incoming noise, confusion and questions coming towards SI and the Avengers, but everything about her says _running on fumes_.

It’s only the day after the funeral and the woman looks like she’s going to collapse without a moment’s notice. To be fair, Peter’s certainly faring no better.

Peter doesn’t think Pepper’s stopped since waking up (considering she had slept at all), flitting from one corner of the house to another. He wonders if it’s because she’s concerned that should she stop, cease the momentum she’s built, give herself even one second to breathe that she’ll succumb to grief.

Making himself useful is the least he can do, even if it’s something as mundane as making lunch. He’s grateful to Pepper for everything she’s done – and doing for him, for whatever prompted her to allow him and his aunt to stay at the lake house.

Tony and Pepper’s lake house. Just Pepper and a four-year-old girl’s warm, empty home, now.

It must have been such a happy place. That it has to be marred and twisted by tragedy – it’s deeply unfair.

Pepper is just a few feet away from where Peter is stationed at the cutting board, snipping off yellowed and browned portions of a bunch of greens. They work in a silence that Peter hopes is companionable.

His eyes are still puffy as hell – he’s basically still in the midst of an annoying, extended breakdown and even his superpowers don’t seem too keen on reversing the evidence.

When Peter's done with the carrots, he brushes them into a spare bowl and moves on to the cucumbers. Once that’s done, he ignites the stove and pours some oil onto the pan, waiting for it to heat up. He shuffles around a bit, looking through all the different cupboards for the right tool, coming up empty. He pulls on drawer handles and finds spoons, forks, cups, the occasional mug and casserole pan, but not a tong or spatula in sight.

Sighing, he turns off the heat and moves closer to the sink to check if the drying rack has anything he can use. There’s a set of shelves to the right of where Pepper is standing, carrying a small assortment of fancy plates, spices, and –

Oh.

_Oh_.

Is that – is that him?

Peter squints as if the spider bite didn’t overdo giving him perfect vision. Blinks a few times for good measure.

The picture is still there, sitting innocently in a simple dark frame, smiling right back at him. Peter doesn’t even dare breathe, as if the next motion he makes will break his trance, do away with the illusion in front of him.

It’s one of the numerous photos Peter and Tony had taken together for their ‘Stark Internship’ shoot. As exciting as it was that he actually had a legitimate position at SI – at least on paper – neither of them had taken the whole thing all that seriously. 

Photograph-Tony, very much alive, has a very good straight face on. The internship certificate is upside-down. The bunny ears they’re giving each other are both off, Peter’s hand _miles_ away from where Tony’s head actually is.

The lump in Peter’s throat, which he had spent the past while ignoring in favour of hacking at some vegetables, comes back full force.

“Kid?” Pepper says. It’s quiet, barely audible over the water gushing out from the faucet sink. 

Peter finds his voice, tears his gaze from the shelves and just looks at the counter. “Yeah?”

“Are you looking for something?”

“Y-yeah – a spatula for the stir-fry?”

“Check the drawer on our left; they’re kind of buried. Sauce is in the fridge.”

Peter nods, even though Pepper isn’t looking at him. She hasn’t looked at him at all in the past while, really, not even when he swallowed his own anxiety and offered to help her with meal prep. “Thank you, Mrs. Potts.”

“Pepper’s fine.”

Something tells Peter it’s not the right time to ask about the picture on the shelf – for the sake of Pepper’s sanity and maybe even his own. Curiosity is beginning to bite at the edges of his thoughts, but Peter isn’t ready to ask. To talk. To share.

Peter turns the stove back on, flips the switch to activate the exhaust fan, and lets himself get lost in mindless work.

_

Happy drives him and May to New York, both of them stowed in the backseat. The partition is down, but the car ride is soundless besides the hum of the engine and May idly flipping through the itinerary Pepper had printed out for them – a list of apartments for sale in Queens. 

Pepper had handed the file folder to Peter in less than a week, insisting that the Starks cover any costs until May is back on her feet financially. It’s quite detailed, bordering on meticulous: there’s a schedule for which complexes to visit – they’ll be looking at eleven different buildings, today, all at most 20 minutes away from Midtown by train with two-bedroom suites and a study room. No strong preference between a gas or electric stove, though the latter is much easier to keep clean. One bathroom is okay, but two would be better.

Whether it’s another task that Pepper’s taken up to keep her mind occupied or if she wants the Parkers out of her home without being explicit about it, Peter’s too afraid to bring it up, rub someone the wrong way.

The gaping hole in his heart swirls with insecurity that he doesn’t address. It’s suffocating.

Not really thinking about it, he reaches over for May’s hand.

Peter had been a very tactile – _clingy_ – child; he loved hugs and between May and Ben his childhood had no shortage of physical affection.

A fun game he and his aunt and uncle used to play, cultivated by the multiple shopping trips or walks around the city spent holding hands so that he didn’t stray among crowds of strangers was ‘three squeezes for I love you.’

It’s simple, hardly a game at all and kind of silly, but it made a younger Peter giggle every time. A non-verbal reassurance that he was wanted, an inside joke to remind him that he belonged.

He clutches the fingers of the woman who raised him – his mother-figure, someone he would give and do anything for. For years it’s been Peter and May against the world and the gigantic Milky Way – he’d almost lost sight of it, in the excitement of being Spider-man, before sophomore year had socked him down hard within the first semester. 

May sets the papers down on her lap and looks at her nephew, eyes soft.

His whole fist used to fit inside one of May’s slender hands, all soft and warm skin. Now, Peter’s fingers extend past May’s. He’s a few inches taller, while her skin has grown weathered with age.

Peter squeezes thrice.

When the gesture is returned, Peter is pulled a few meters closer to the ground, re-tethered.

_

There are a lot of questions that Peter wants to ask Pepper, and they queue up in their long, drawn out laundry list idling at the back of his mind. Some notable ones include:

  1. Hey, Pepper, sorry to bother you. May really digs the loose-leaf jasmine tea but we’re running out, so could we restock that soon?
  2. There’s a lab here, right? Can I go check it out? I hope I’m not overstepping.
  3. Is there anything I can do?
  4. How much longer can we stay here? I don’t really want to impose for too long.
  5. Why is there an alpaca in the yard?
  6. Why are there pictures of me around?
  7. Did Tony miss me? I miss him so much it hurts.
  8. At the funeral Rhodey pulled me aside, we had a really awkward hug and he told me once all the computational trials for the time heist were run Tony admitted he was eager to have me back. I don’t think he said it to be cruel – more like an assurance that what Tony did wasn’t in vain, but is it true?
  9. Did Tony do what he did for my sake?
  10. Does seeing me remind you of that?
  11. I’m sorry; what can I do to make it up to you?

_

It becomes routine. Peter and Pepper spend each morning in the kitchen getting breakfast ready, whisking eggs, toasting bread, cutting up fruit.

At one point Peter shooed May out of the kitchen because her cooking is atrocious. May didn’t even feign offense because he was smiling a bit as he made the dig.

He and May drive down to Queens for apartment and job hunting once the dishes are done. The two come back in time for dinner, though Peter is usually too late to really help prepare any food. For dinners, he’s the unofficial table-setter. 

There’s an untold understanding between the him and Pepper – that they’re managing this new reality, bit by bit, and that being productive is their strategy to get through the day.

If Pepper notices him sneaking peeks at the internship photo – and who is he kidding, it’s _Pepper Potts_, of course she knows – she doesn’t bring it up. They’re just small, fleeting glances, as if Peter’s retinas will burn if he allows himself more than a second or two. It’s like a little reminder that maybe he does deserve to be here, with Tony’s family, but it also fills him with an unidentifiable fear. 

Morgan, meanwhile, has been understandably teary and grouchy – angry, even. She doesn’t seem to like him much, to his dismay. The first time Peter had gotten the nerve to kneel down, bring himself eye-level with the little girl, she had pushed him and run back off upstairs.

_I don’t want _you_, I want dad_.

It’s nothing against _him_, specifically, but in the chaos of emotions and the sheer volume of everything that had happened recently, Peter found it kind of hard to remind himself of that. May had witnessed the whole thing and had given him a kiss on the cheek as consolation, along with an offer to take a walk with her outside. 

Peter remembers life immediately post-spider bite, post-Ben Parker. He’d been furious with the world – with himself. Maybe he still is, what with the familiar pangs of guilt as images of his uncle and Tony flicker in his head like a shoddy slideshow. Peter remembers feeling vile and selfish for wishing Ben was sitting on the couch every time he crawled out of his room and not May.

He hadn’t wanted May’s comfort – he wanted Ben’s.

So he asks Pepper what Morgan’s favourite breakfast food is, one morning, clad in pajamas, face still puffy and hair sporting some impressive cowlicks. Pepper tilts her head, expression going blank with surprise before quickly recovering. 

She smiles.

The knot in Peter’s chest loosens.

Pepper doesn’t say anything, but she digs around and pulls out a waffle iron. Peter’s pretty accustomed to the layout of the place by now, so he musters a grin with less difficulty than he figured it would take and jumps into action. Quickly, he finds the electric whisk and a handful of mixing bowls. 

He and Pepper usually work on different tasks around the kitchen, both of them giving each other at least a few feet of distance. This time, Pepper tells Peter she’ll prep the dry ingredients while he separates the eggs.

It’s rote work, but it feels meaningful, somehow, both of them providing whatever they can for a home that is, at the moment, still broken.

Pepper pats Peter on the shoulder before shuffling away and out of the kitchen. “I’m going to go get Morgan,” she says.

Peter nods, neck suddenly stiff, and tries to keep his last interaction with Morgan out of his head. He finishes up with folding the meringue into the batter – the mixture is almost ready to cook – when his hearing picks up Pepper talking to Morgan from near the stairway and pairs of footsteps against hardwood.

Her voice pitches higher when she’s talking to her daughter, almost saccharine. “Come on, bug,” Peter hears her stage-whisper, “Peter has a surprise for you.”

Morgan, Peter had learned from Happy, is a chatty, confident child, endearingly curious. It’s not obvious now, as Morgan hazards a look at Peter from behind her mother’s leg. 

Her gaze lands on the bags of flour and sugar and then the big mixing spoon in Peter’s hand. Morgan’s eyes go big with awe. Her little mouth opens in surprise and it’s the cutest shit Peter has ever seen.

“Waffles?” she asks.

“Waffles,” Peter says sagely.

Some of the shyness seems to melt and she takes tentative steps towards the teenager. So far, it looks like Peter’s idea is working out, so he tries to keep the ball rolling.

“The batter’s almost ready – do you want to do the honours?”

Morgan nods, face pouting with determination and immediately tries to grab the bowl from Peter. Thankfully, she’s quite short and Peter has super-reflexes.

In the background, Pepper snorts. “Take it easy, Madam,” she chastises. 

“That’s a yes, huh?” Peter says. “Hold on, I can go grab a stool or something, let me just put this on the table for now –”

Pepper waves a dismissing hand. She’s actually smiling now, hints of light reaching her eyes. “No need; just hoist her up.”

Peter looks down at the girl that barely reaches his torso. She’s staring right back up at him – or maybe at the batter. Probably at the batter.

“Oh,” he says. “If that’s okay with you, Morgan.”

Morgan sniffs primly. “Yes please,” she says, cheeks puffing out, “but _don’t_ drop me.”

Peter gives her a very serious thumbs-up, schooling his face into something serious before he places the batter next to the hot iron and puts his hands around Morgan’s torso, lifting her up. The girl giggles in response and makes grabby-hands at the mixing spoon.

Pepper gets a clean measuring cup with a spout and transfers the batter before handing it to her daughter, making sure she has a tight grip on the handle. “You should say thank you to Peter, Morgan – we shouldn’t have so much sugar early in the morning, but he was _very_ persuasive.” 

“Thank you!” Morgan chirps. Peter readjusts his grip on Morgan so he’s only propping her up with one hand and pulls up the top metal plate.

"No problem, I’m a big waffle fan, too,” Peter says as Morgan pours, getting some of the mix on edges that will be a bitch to scrub off later. “Careful; the grill is super-hot.”

Once that’s done and a timer is set, Morgan graciously offers to help set the table with Peter. It makes him irrationally delighted, and for a minute or so everything is okay.

_

The world never adjusts to personal struggles. The loved and dead are lowered into the ground during pleasant summer afternoons, and elsewhere someone might be having the best day of their lives. Playing at the beach, holding hands on a second date, getting a milkshake.

Life goes on.

Being upstate, tucked away from the chaos of big cities filled with upset, desperate people with only half the answers is maybe the closest thing Peter can get to a pause button.

He’s only visited New York a handful of times to see the emergency shelters everywhere, stands offering non-perishables, soap and some loose change for the laundromat on every other street. Peter hasn’t even made the effort to find anyone from school, as much as he yearns to hear Ned’s voice and sarcastic teasing. He hopes his friend understands. 

He can’t stay in this slump forever, of course – Midtown is making the sudden influx of students work with increasing availability for online instruction, hiring more teachers, planning to use the second gym and foyer as temporary classrooms. This is all detailed to Peter in an e-mailed newsletter that extends an invitation to return as a student, flashing menacingly at him from the laptop he borrowed from Pepper. There’s an access code at the end of the message to recreate an account to the school’s servers. 

Peter logs in, as much as he doesn’t want to.

Spider-man always gets up. Tony always believed he could, in his own way.

_

The good moments get longer – Peter’s not alone because he has May, and now Pepper, Happy, even Rhodey on the infrequent times he stops by. Morgan, too, maybe, given some time. For now, that’s not saying much – things are still tense, everything is duller and more exhausting than it should be – but the hope for convalescence is there, like a beacon. 

Life goes on, and most of the time May is his reminder. The weeks at the cabin are spent with him toeing his own imaginary line between selfish and rightfully dispossessed. The older woman gazes at him with so much fondness, so much love that Peter still needs convincing to believe he deserves, so he eats and washes up and gives his opinion on which apartment is the best.

Pepper’s crying has gotten quieter, more measured, like a controlled release of emotion instead of a violent downpour. During the day she’s keeping SI contained, moderating relations between the public and the Avengers, always going, going, going. Peter kind of envies her: how composed and poised she is, despite everything.

Unfortunately, tonight is a bit more exceptional. Tonight is a Bad Night, capital B capital N.

Peter is lying back against his mattress, staring at the ceiling while listening to the noise from just a few meters away. His own chest rises and falls, its tempo more deliberate and uniform than Pepper’s short, erratic breaths. He hears Morgan’s breathing, too, in her own room, slow and regular. 

His abilities are really both a blessing and a curse.

_Like your conscience,_ a voice in his head says. It sounds like Tony’s and Peter’s brows furrow.

“Geez,” Peter says, to no one at all.

And then he gets up.

His fist is raised at the door before he knows it, hovering. Peter’s face squeezes like he’d just stuck an entire slice of lemon in his mouth, exhaling hard through his nostrils.

Knuckles thump against firm wood. Peter hears a gasp before the other side goes silent. Seconds from backtracking and running back to his room to wonder if he’d gone too far, Pepper speaks.

“Hello?”

In attempt of finding his voice and maybe a bit of bravery, Peter steels his shoulders and clears his throat.

“Pepper? It’s – it’s Peter. I, um. I don’t know. I just wanted to check in, if that’s okay." 

More silence. A shaky sigh.

“You can come in,” Pepper finally says.

His grip against the handle is sticky and Peter has to relieve the tension from his jaw before he can pry his palm off the doorknob. For a moment he’s kind of worried he’ll just break it off.

Pepper’s shoulders are slouched as her weight dips the cushions on the side of her bed. She looks sad, small and lonely, like Peter tends to feel every second he’s actually alone. The whites of her eyes are an ugly pink.

“Um, sorry,” Peter says, still standing near the entrance, gingerly closing the door behind him. It’s late into the night and he doesn’t want to disturb anyone else.

Evidently that’s the wrong thing to say because Pepper buries her face in her hands and lets out another sob.

Fuck. Peter’s a sympathetic crier. Every time May freaks out, he freaks out. If she gets all misty, he’s 90% in along for the ride – he just can’t tolerate seeing her hurting, and it’s one of Peter’s more embarrassing traits that seems incredibly keen on biting him in the ass right now. He gulps and blinks back the first hints of moisture and carefully pads to where Pepper is sitting.

He’s gone this far, so this might as well be the hill he dies on.

She flinches very subtly when he settles next to her, but ultimately lets it happen.

Now is a great time to break out question number three. “Is there anything I can do?" 

One of many multi-million-dollar questions.

“That’s quite loaded,” she answers. “I’m really not sure, to be honest.”

They lapse into silence. It’s not comfortable.

After what feels like hours – Peter sees the digital clock on the nightstand, it’s been three minutes – of Pepper breathing in, breathing out, rising to get another Kleenex and sitting back down, she speaks again, calmer.

“Thank you,” she says. “You’re a really sweet kid.”

Peter blinks. “I didn’t do anything.”

A laugh. A dry, ironic thing that confuses Peter further. “Really – you’ve done more than you know. It’s just proper conduct to not have these kinds of breakdowns in front of your four-year-old daughter – and having you here helps. It really does.”

Peter doesn’t follow. His next word comes out as a faint whisper. “What?”

Pepper makes a contemplative face. “We understand each other, don’t we, Peter? At least in the ways that matter right now. You – you _saw_ Tony. Understood him. I think I understood him better than myself.”

Mentioning him feels like finally addressing the elephant in the room even though literally everything about their current circumstance screams Mr. Stark, Iron Man, _Tony_, gone, dead, six feet under –

“But –” But what? “Pepper, what can I do?”

He knows he sounds like a child, petulant, demanding more from a widow. Peter wants something less abstract than the spiel Pepper just gave, to feel less _useless_. 

She sighs for maybe the hundredth time. “I don’t owe you a thing, but, kid, you don’t either,” Pepper says.

Irritation burns through him. His face is heating up from something other than sorrow.

“How could you say that? I’ve been staying here for a while now – sleeping in _your_ home and you’re paying for me and May’s _entire_ apartment and _you’ve_ kept all the things from our old place in a storage facility even though it’s been five years – I’m just being a fucking _mooch_ –”

“Hey, kid. Don’t give me so much credit. Tony was the one who packed your stuff up. He barely let me help at all.”

“_Pepper_ –”

She brings a finger to her lips and makes a hushing noise.

“I could have pushed for a down payment by now – had the real estate agent hand you keys and shown you the way out so if you think you’re being selfish, I am too. Whatever part of Tony I have left – I’m just trying to hold on to it.” 

“No, no –” Peter says, insistent, with an edge of anger. With two weeks – a whole lifetime – of guilt. “That makes no sense.”

Shit, Peter cannot. He cannot listen to this. Because she’s overestimating him, she’s overplaying his role in Tony’s life which stings to admit but it’s _true_, isn’t it?

He knows he’s probably glaring at her at this point. Dear God, he is so bad at this – so, so bad. 

It doesn’t feel fair for her to say that, for her to treat him so well. Sure, he must be a few tiers above a stranger, but Pepper’s been so gracious and accommodating to him that it sends Peter in for a loop. Tony and Pepper have been a pair before they knew they were a pair, more than twenty years of thinly veiled affection before they both became bolder, more candid, more honest. Two decades of friendship and mutual understanding turned into a loving relationship.

Yeah, he has self-esteem issues because what teenager doesn’t, especially with a track record like his, but of course he knew he mattered to Tony. The man always set aside time for Peter, after Toomes – made himself available and open and it made Peter happier than he’d been in a long time. Peter had always admired Iron Man – Tony Stark – as a cool hero. Learning that he was a good man, too was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. 

Tony cared about Peter. But how does his two years with the man as his mentor, and as something that a traitorous part of his mind used to indulge in – something like a confidante, _family_ – even hold a candle to what Pepper had with Tony? He’s just a kid from Queens – Pepper doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t know Pepper, either. He’s spent the past two weeks helping around the house, gardening, cooking, mopping the floors and beyond it being a distraction he just wants to feel like less of a parasite.

He’d come in here to try to comfort Pepper but derailed so quickly. The delicate peace Peter’s been building around him is flimsy, barely anything at all. Moving on to stare at his lap, he mumbles, “That's way too much, Pepper. We’re – we’re not on the same level, you're overestimating me, I’m sorry.”

Pepper grabs his shoulders. “Peter,” she says, slightly choked. Her expression is anguished and resolute all at once, and Peter thinks Tony must have been so incredibly lucky to have someone like her in his corner. “Peter, the second Morgan was born – the second I heard her cry for the first time I knew straight away I would do anything for her. Having a kid wasn’t even in the works for me, for most of my life but – you hear all these stories where parents are smitten with their kid from the get go – there’s a lot of theories, like brain chemistry, the primal instinct to protect young that all animals have, and I felt it too. It took me years to realize I loved Tony but with Morgan – it was instantaneous. 

She pauses to parse through her next words, smacking her lips together. Her expression is pleading. 

“Point being, Peter,” Pepper says, letting out a shuddering breath, “your time with him was shorter than either of you deserved, but – it’s not about how long. It’s about how you shared your time together. Tony saw you as his kid, even if he was too emotionally constipated to truly admit it while you were – er, still around. What he felt for you is the exact same as what he felt for Morgan.”

“He loved you so, _so_ much.”

Peter feels winded. His lower lip is swollen by now, with how much he’s gnawed on it.

“And please, kid,” she implores, “please don’t diminish what you’ve done for me – and for Morgan. Having you and your aunt around through this whole thing is making it err on the side of bearable. Thank you for making breakfast with me, reaching out to Morgan and giving her company even if it’s taking some time for her to come around.”

Pepper stares at him – holds eye contact. “No pr’bl’m,” he manages to rasp.

The answer seems to satisfy her, but she isn’t done there.

She opens up her arms in invitation and Peter is genuinely, absolutely just _floored_.

He hopes to be as kind, as gracious as Pepper, one day. 

He moves closer and wraps his arms around her thin shoulders. They’ve never really touched before. It’s a feeble hug, tinged with hesitation on both ends and neither of them are putting any muscle into it, but the sentiment is there. They’re both crying, digesting what had just transpired, the two of them the strangest combination, the strangest mess.

“Thank you for being here,” Pepper says. “You’re enough, I promise.”

_

Forty minutes later, he and Pepper are lounging on the couch at three in the morning. Peter's spent practically every sleepless night (read: every night) zoning out in his room, alone. Morgan and Pepper usually curl up together to sleep in the younger girl’s room, but Peter regularly hears Pepper gingerly walk back outside and shut the bedroom door once she’s sure her daughter is out for the night. 

On the screen, Rey and Finn, accompanied by BB-8, steal the Millennium Falcon. 

Pepper’s watched the original trilogy when she was much younger but had never seen _The Force Awakens _which – ridiculous. A travesty.

So there they are, twin cups of tea – green for Peter because that seemed like the easiest pick, while Pepper has English breakfast with a bit of milk.

“I don’t like this Darth Vader wannabe,” Pepper comments at one point. “He’s very melodramatic." 

“I guess that’s kind of a fixture in space opera, but yeah, no one likes Kyle Ron.”

_We’re friends_, Peter thinks. _I’m friends with Pepper Potts_.

Neither of them are putting their full attention towards the movie; they can’t sleep but that doesn’t mean they’re not tired. Peter’s re-watched the film so many times he can still point out his favourite parts and bring attention to how certain scenes mirror _A New Hope_, half-aware at most.

No one wakes them up from where they are sprawled on the couch the next morning, Pepper dozing primly on one end while Peter’s head dips against the backrest, limbs everywhere and in a position that implies he fell off a building’s eighth floor. His mouth is wide open – perfect for a fly or two.

Culinary arts aren’t May’s forte, but she guides Morgan downstairs and past where her mom and Peter are knocked out in the living room to get them both some food. She toasts bagels for the both of them – just butter for herself, while Morgan likes cream cheese, and scrambles some eggs.

Peter and Pepper sleep until noon.

_

_(lying down on the docks. autumn chill that precedes winter; pepper and peter in fluffy jackets. pepper’s veins are warm with beer, while the teenager opts for a hot chocolate.)_

A rhetorical question: “Do you know how Tony and I met?”

Peter’s silence is as good as a no and a gesture to continue. She’s kind of tipsy and it’s making her feel chatty.

“I went by Virginia up until that point – still did, for a couple years, but the day I met him, he decided my name was Pepper.”

“Ohh, a two-in-one story; I’m intrigued.”

Pepper breathes in crisp air, cheeks tingling. “I never applied to be a PA: I started working at SI in accounting. I’d been there for a couple months, at this point, and I was doing this routine skim, one Monday morning, of yet another spreadsheet.”

“As one does.”

“I had a bad weekend. A college friend set me up on this blind date over the weekend – and it is up there, kid, to this day, as one of the worst dates of my life, and Tony once tried to take me to a bowling alley while he had a concussion he deemed ‘somewhere between mild to moderate.’”

Peter chortles. It’s carefree and amused and Pepper decides she really likes the sound of it.

“Come my next workday, I’m still pissed, so imagine how I felt when I checked cell C3 and noticed a massive error in the formula, in a spreadsheet allegedly completed by someone competent and already checked by the CEO himself, that could have cost SI millions.”

“Tony was in the company office that day, so I took the elevator ride up to give him a piece of my mind. When I went in, he was just flipping through some papers, but I came forward and, well – started to yell. It got so loud some workers from outside tried to restrain me and take me back outside. The whole time Tony hasn’t moved or said anything at all.”

“Not that this isn't the most romantic thing I've ever heard, but where does the nickname part come in?”

“Getting there. Two big guys grabbed me to drag me back outside and I threatened to mace them both if they didn’t get their hands off of me and let me finish.”

“Wait, holy shit –” Peter says, incredulous, “You’re Pepper as in _pepper spray_? For fucking real?”

“Yup.” She pops the ‘p’ for good measure. “I was promoted the next day.”

_

_(a family(?) movie night. peter finds out morgan really, really likes tangled.)_

“_Tangled_!”

“Morg, we watched that two days ago,” Peter whines.

May grins from her armchair. “Now you know how it feels,” she teases. Peter pouts.

He looks to Pepper for backup. She shrugs.

Morgan’s started to sit with Peter, following the waffle peace offering: at the dining table and in the living room, too, after she found him and Pepper passed out on the couch, Star Wars muted but still playing. It’s another step back towards normal, so once every few days everyone gathers in front of the TV to mindlessly consume mainstream entertainment, albeit at a more reasonable hour. 

The girl is a spitfire in the making, already witty and so, so smart. She’s amazing.

Peter groans, making Morgan smirk because the brat knows she’s won. “_Fine_. But only because the soundtrack goes hard.”

_

_(dum-e, u. tony complained about them and how useless they were all the time, but it's not like he ever intended to give them a software update.)_

May’s out for a series of job interviews and Morgan is spending some time with Happy while Pepper gets some work done, so Peter’s been left to his own devices for the next hour or so. 

Some pacing later, Peter figures he might as well rip off the band-aid now.

FRIDAY welcomes him as he enters Tony’s lab space, eyes immediately landing on DUM-E, who appears to snap to alertness and roll over.

“Hey, bud,” Peter murmurs. DUM-E beeps as he pets the robot’s claw. “Long time no see, huh? Where’s U? Is he hiding?”

More beeps.

“Okay. He can come out when he wants to – no rush.”

_

_(the photo that saved the universe.)_

_The internship award is stupid, albeit necessary. Within a single visit to the lab – letting Peter mess around with all the tech (some restrictions apply) and letting him poke and prod around with schematics, Tony can reconfirm what he knew already. Peter's a genius. _

_The kid is so excited, still practically vibrating at a frequency that might shatter glass by hour two when Tony comes to a realization. _

_He skipped a lot of school, right? According to May, dropped band, dropped robotics, temporarily dropped decathlon, all for Spider-man. She admitted, with a good amount of shame written on her face, that she’d let it slide because Ben’s death was still fresh, and Peter’s grades actually hadn’t slipped at all through the whole ordeal, with the exception of AP US history. _

_It hits him that Peter must be bored out of his mind, if citing his numerous detentions for leaving class and watching videos from his laptop bears any weight. _

_The issue, Tony pinpoints, is that teenagers are short-sighted and as he learned the hard way, start doing dumb shit when they feel like they’re not being challenged. _

_Peter’s doing fine in school and is putting in an earnest effort to pay attention in class – or at the very least feign it – but modern education is dystopian and good grades alone plus a single, measly extracurricular won’t slide well with college admissions._

_Which brings Tony’s bright idea to pad Peter’s resume a bit with an official gig at SI. Photographic proof never hurts, so he arranges for that too. _

** _peter_ ** _ [0:23] [photo] [photo] [photo] [photo]_

_[0:24] which one should i wear tomorrow!! _

_[0:34] Idc_

** _peter_ ** _ [0:36] :o_

_[0:36] :O_

_[0:37] >:(_

_[0:38] They’re all ugly_

** _peter_ ** _ [0:38] dude omg i KNOW ok my uncle literally had no taste but these r my only options_

_[0:39] like two of these are,,, corduroy _

_[0:40] Yeah scrap those I don’t want them within 20 feet of me _

_[0:40] Just go to sleep _

** _peter_ ** _ [0:41] can u try to be helpful _

_[0:42] Sleep, you have school tomorrow_

**_peter_ ** _ [0:43] which one do u hate LEAST_

** _peter_ ** _ [1:02] are u ghosting me _

_[1:02] the nerve_

** _peter_ ** _ [1:11] whatever it’s not like u know anything about fashion_

_[1:12] Excuse me?_

** _peter_ ** _ [1:13] found him_

_

Tony dies on the 17th of October, the year 2023. He is buried three days later.

The move-in date back to Queens is scheduled for early December.

_

Peter and May have alarms set for 6 a.m. and are out the door in Happy’s car by 7, along with two suitcases in the trunk. Despite the winter chill and thin layers of filthy snow that cover the whole city, moving in is easy enough – Pepper arranged for a moving company to bring all their old furniture and possessions over, and with Peter around nothing within the weight profile of a fridge or bed really constitutes as heavy lifting.

In his backpack is his suit, which weighs a couple hundred grams at most, but it’s the heftiest thing he has to carry.

The realtor, a short man in a three-piece suit hands the Parkers some legal documents, a pair of keys, fobs, and leaves the pair, plus Happy, to their own devices.

Even with an enhanced teenage boy, getting everything sorted takes the whole day: Peter loses a whole hour trying to find a missing screw while assembling May’s bed, his windowsill is too narrow to hold more than three action figures, and hanging up his clothes is just tedious. 

In the evening, Pepper arrives with Morgan – and Rhodey, to Peter’s delight. The Colonel ruffles Peter’s hair and holds up two large bags of Shake Shack cheeseburgers and crispy fries. The kitchen table’s too small to fit six people, so they all gather around the couch and dig in.

Morgan likes dipping her fries in mayo, which Peter finds blasphemous.

Overall, it’s a pretty nice night, and the food tastes great – but Peter feels a pang of longing when he looks at Pepper at Morgan. He’s going to miss them.

“I’ll miss you guys,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Rhodey coos. “Aww.”

Peter gives the man a light kick.

“You and May can come over for the winter holidays – that’s coming up pretty soon. There’s spring break too.”

Once dinner has dissolved into several indistinct conversations, Rhodey holding Morgan in his lap while May and Happy get to talking, Pepper taps Peter on the shoulder.

“Come down to my car with me,” she says. “There’s still some things I have to give you.”

The things, it turns out, are two brown cardboard boxes that they don’t open until they’re both seated on the floor of Peter’s room. He manages to find an utility knife to cut away the tape on the first one.

“Woah,” Peter says.

Peter recognizes what it is: it’s the storage pod for the nanites of the Iron Spider suit, along with a larger container made of sleek, light gray metal.

“That’s the charging unit,” Pepper elaborates. “Just plug it in and you’re good to go.”

Peter sets the thing up at the right corner of his room, close to the door. He undoes the lid on the storage pod and the nanobots flow out like metallic ribbons of light, swirls of dark scarlet, gold and navy. For a moment, Peter is mesmerized, watching the smooth motions of a semi-manifested armour dance in its container.

“Thank you,” he says.

The next box is a bunch of medical supplies – containers of suture spray that Peter had developed himself in Tony’s lab, surgical tape, saline wash, and other emergency equipment. Pepper assures him that if he’s running low on anything, he can just contact her or Happy – he has both their numbers, after all.

“You don’t have to jump back into this stuff right away, no one expects you to,” Pepper says, “I just think you should have all this for when you’re ready. 

“Yeah. I know.”

“There’s one more thing.” She pulls out a thin, black device out of her purse. It’s slightly thinner than a smartphone and completely plain, save for the small projector embedded in the middle. Peter’s heart drops to his stomach when he spots it.

“Is this –”

“Yeah.” Pepper opens Peter’s hand, places it firmly in his palm and closes his fingers around it.

“Tony is – he was, as you know, dramatic as hell – that never changed – so he recorded his final hologram and stored the file in one of the Iron Man helmets,” Pepper says. “Which is fine, I suppose, thematically appropriate, but highly impractical.”

Pepper Potts was one of the few people in the world that really, truly understood Tony Stark. Likely more than anyone else. It’s a given that she’d know where to look to check if he’d left anything for his family.

Peter snorts, which makes Pepper huff a laugh of her own. “Sounds right,” he says, rubbing a thumb across the thin device. “So – um –” 

“It’s addressed to you,” she says. Her eyes are shining and her hand is still lightly brushing Peter’s knuckles, as if to soothe. “I managed to transfer the data into something more discreet.”

“Oh.” It makes a warmth spread through him and feels like getting dunked in cold water all at once.

She nods. “And, Peter – for this, too – you don’t need to watch it right away. Really. You keep the device for whenever the time is right.”

Peter thinks back to the day of the funeral, which feels like yesterday and years ago all at once, where he wept quietly at the edge of a big, charming lake.

“Thank you,” Peter says, voice thick. “Thank you so much, for everything.”

Pepper hugs him. She’s kind of bony, like May is. Her hair tickles. Peter wraps his arms around her waist and gives a single, tight squeeze before they both let go.

_

“_Hey, Pete._”

“Fuck. Pause.”

The recording stops, and hologram-Tony goes static. Peter massages his temples and blows out a puff of air.

“Okay, okay, come on, Spider-man,” he says to himself. “Okay. Rewind, from the top.”

_

_Hey, Pete. _ _This is kind of morbid, isn’t it? _

_I’ve got a gut feeling that no matter how this time travel thing goes down something is bound to go wrong. If my math is right, and it always is, the closest thing to playing it safe is leaving behind a life-model of me to chatter your ear off in case of my untimely death. It’s just standard occupational hazard, really, with a gig like ours. But you know that, so I won’t dawdle on those details too much._

_It’s been a long five years. I married Pepper, Peter, and we had a daughter. Morgan. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, right next to you. Every day I spend with them is a happy one – they’ve given me something to live for. _

_But I guess no matter how much time passes, even if you think you’re at peace with it, grief doesn’t really go away, right? You learn how to process it. Before my wedding Pepper and I both agreed to counseling, and I have my own, separate therapy sessions. It’s not meant to fix everything, but you get the tools to figure out how to keep going. _

_As happy as I am I can’t lie and say I didn’t spend all those five years wishing you were here right along with us. _

_I always joked about you exacerbating my heart condition, but I think losing you genuinely broke my heart. Guess I really jinxed myself there, huh? I wish I’d spent more time with you, been there for you sooner. When you died, I spent months wondering if you knew I loved you. If you didn’t, this is my chance now to shout it from the rooftops so you can’t ever doubt it. _

_The whole universe is at stake here – you’re at stake along with it; if I don’t make it, I’d still say whatever happens is meant to happen. _

_So – no matter how tomorrow turns out, whether I’m around to _see_ tomorrow or not – you’re going to be okay, Peter. I’m wrong about very few things so I know you’re going to do great in whatever you set your mind to, meet great people, beat the shit out of the ones who aren’t. You’re the future. You’re the next step. Not me. _

_Miss you like hell, kiddo. _

_See you soon. _

_

**spideywatch** @SpidermanUpdates • 23h

Spider-man spotted in southside Queens, stopping armed robbery around 9:30 EDT. Police reports confirm bit.ly/23hd6

9.6k Comments 113k retweets 403k likes

**spideywatch** @SpidermanUpdates • 23h

sorry let me just break professionalism for a minute here

489 Comments 1.6k retweets 10k likes

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**spideywatch** @SpidermanUpdates • 23h

@SpidermanUpdates HES BACK MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS HAPPY HOLIDAYS

**spideywatch** @SpidermanUpdates • 23h

@SpidermanUpdates my son,,,, hes here. he

**spideywatch** @SpidermanUpdates • 23h

@SpidermanUpdates i

**marcus** @moonchildren12 • 20h

QUEENS QUEENS QUEENS

**FLASH MOB** @spideyno1fan • 19h

i am so used to giving and now i finally get to receive

_

**Pepper Potts** ✓ @starkceo • 12h

Welcome back, Spider-man.

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	2. love isn't love 'till it's free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally a one shot but i have no impulse control so

Going back to New York – trying to re-establish some sense of home, a Peter Parker edition of normal - hadn’t been easy. The likely underlying cause was probably because nothing was normal anymore – spider DNA and golden luck handing out traumas like a poker dealer at a gambling table. He loses every time – there’s not payout, there’s never _any_ payout – and he’s still somehow glued to his seat, miserable as his life is ground to debt and dust.

Some days it’s hard to get out of his own headspace.

When the memories creep back to the edges of his consciousness – sinister, leering – the white-hot agony of something charging at him at a hundred-and-fifty miles per hour, the tension and desperation of his muscles as he stared at his own soot-covered face reflected in murky water under tons of concrete, Peter wonders. They pounce on him when he lets his guard down – when he tries to sleep, when he tries to remember that he has so much to live for.

Notwithstanding the depth of the emotional baggage he has to work through, he’s glad to be alive. Really. He’d pick seeing the next day over, well, not – despite the fear it elicits.

But a traitorous, shadowed part of his mind will wonder, whisper:

_What are you still here for_?

The past few months, Peter would perch at the edge of a building and retract his mask once he'd finished his nightly routes around the city. He'd let the breeze sift through him as a reminder that he’s here, present, breathing.

Tony Stark would look at him from across the street, the sharp, bright eyes of his face overlaid with the glimmer of the Iron Man mask. Vibrant, colourful paint for a man who died with ashen skin and a defunct reactor.

Peter would look away.

With his powers, Peter's always felt light on his feet but lately it's been as if lead shackles are curving around his limbs. The days May makes him take off, when he doesn't have the opportunity to get any momentum started and is just alone with himself, he spends the whole day holed up in his room, staring at the wall and ceiling, so, so tired, so heavy but unable to sleep. 

He’s alive for a reason, he decides. Promises himself. He’s Spider-man, Tony called him the _future_, for fuck's sake. Police radio is his evening entertainment. He drags Ned to the library to finish homework in one go so he can patrol right away. MJ notices him struggling in AP Euro and he successfully assures himself that as much as he loathes help, she's offering it because they're friends, or something, because MJ doesn't really pity people. 

He hopes it’s enough.

_

The thing about being in the spotlight, he realizes, is that very, very few things are up to him. 

The world decides it’s not enough.

_

Tony had been a symbol of stability to Peter - a sharp contrast against the image of an erratic, irrational man the media used to paint, a modern Cassandra.

Peter's family history was rife with death: he barely remembers his parent at all, and all it took was a knife to the stomach to kill Ben slowly and painfully. The months afterwards, all he could see in May was her own mortality. It'd been naive of him - childish - to think that this man, who'd come out of a kidnapping, shrapnel to the chest, a nuke on his back could ever die. 

For so long, Tony had been a symbol of strength - a representation of pushing human limits far past what his enhanced physiology could ever hope to surpass. 

_Mr. Stark would have really liked you._

Idiot. 

Vigilantism aside, Peter is gentle by nature. He's physically strong, excessively so. As Spider-man, he keeps his distance, pulls punches, webs the assailant before anyone can get hurt.

But when Beck - the real Beck - finally crumples and goes lax with death, mouth gaping, Peter glances at his body for a few moments and climbs down to the bridge deck without another look back. 

To use Tony as _leverage_, a cheap trick - to call him kid, to act like he gave a shit about Peter's problems and his desire to just have a second to grow the fuck up - sparks something in Peter he hasn't experienced in years. Unadulterated hatred, like the satisfaction of watching the drunk asshole that stabbed his uncle get his prison sentence, the vicious urge to slam the man into glass with enough force that medical would have to pry the cuts open to dig each shard out. 

Memories meant to inspire love, fondness - something that was supposed to be his, something he alone could choose how to handle - twisted against him. Made ugly. 

_

Peter can’t breathe. He’s laid down in the backseat of Happy’s car, and the older man has his foot on the gas. He feels like he’s going to die. He _is_ going to die, hyperventilating in a Toyota minivan. 

Happy’s voice is foggy, underwater. “Hang in there, Peter – shit –” he says as the swerves the car, probably to avoid incoming traffic. The screech of tires digs into his skull and he nearly convulses. A groan of pain escapes him, and Peter thinks he makes out Happy shouting a hasty apology.

There’s the inexplicable urge to run – just crush the door of the vehicle and break out, as if the impact of his own body on asphalt and concrete will do something to ground him.

After an eternity, they’ve made their way onto the highway, en route to the lake house with some detours through backroads to keep anyone off their tail. Peter his putting in all his energy just trying to gather his bearings. With great effort, he sits upright and taps the lens frame sitting peacefully on his nose bridge.

EDITH, who Happy had returned to Peter the second he’d managed to scramble through the car door, comes to life.

“Hello, Peter,” she greets, pleasant as ever.

“Hi,” Peter rasps.

“My diagnosis is that you’ve experienced a severe anxiety attack.”

Heart still pounding against his temples, Peter grumbles, “Yeah, no shit?" 

Happy speaks up. “Who are you talking to?”

“The glasses, Happy.” 

“Ah.”

Happy clears his throat, awkward. 

“This is just the first PR disaster of many, kid,” he says, probably going for reassuring and missing the dartboard entirely. It's fine, it's very... Happy. Peter appreciates it. 

From that statement, Peter can glean:

The pros: the implication that he’s going to make it through this.

The cons: the implication that he’s going to make it through this long enough to experience a series of more disasters.

Thanks, he hates it. 

_

Pepper is already standing outside when Happy pulls up to the driveway. Peter stumbles out of the car shaking, expression wild with residual shock. He’s been panicking for the past hour now, but something about seeing the furrow of Pepper’s brows and the thin, cerulean gauntlet that fits snugly around her right hand makes this whole shebang sink in even deeper. 

Halfway to the entrance, he stops, stance wide, defensive. His senses are too muddled – there’s too much white noise inside his own mind for him to properly differentiate what might be reality and what isn’t. Beck’s illusions were primarily visual, somewhat aural; BARF could make a near-perfect model of anything – any person, any situation – but it wasn’t advanced enough to fully block out the whir of a drone's inner machinery, imitate blink-and-you-miss-it twitches of someone’s expression, the way heart rates speed and slow.

Pepper doesn’t move save for retracting the gauntlet and settling the unit back into her watch, palms on either side of her body, wide open and exposed. Her posture relaxes and her feet remain planted on the second wooden plank leading to the lake house. She glances down at Peter who is still meters away, just staring at her with thinly veiled unease.

Peter tries to focus. The only thing as loud as the slosh of blood inside a body is the idle chitter of bugs and birds in the gardens.

In.

Out. 

The back of his skull takes no notice. There’s no pounding, no tickle, no mounting crest of anxiety.

It’s Pepper, flesh and blood and _real_. It’s the lake house.

He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s _safe_.

Legs like lead, he takes his first step forward. Pepper keeps still, but he can hear her breathing quicken just a fraction.

_Pepper_, he mouths, soundless. Recognizing that Peter’s mental gears must finally be creaking again, she walks down the final step so that she’s ground level with him. They’re about the same height, but she's thinner, older. At the moment, though, she looks so much sturdier than he feels.

His feet, socked only in the polymer of his Spider-man suit, drag against gravel as he approaches her like a scared animal. 

Shoulders bump with a soft _oof_ from Pepper. Peter’s arms can’t move; he just stands there, a life-model decoy of himself, leaning slightly against the other’s person’s frame. Up close, his ears pick up on Pepper’s careful swallow and the thump of vessels contracting at her neck. The whole trip from the car to the fucking door took about as much energy as a half-day swinging from Manhattan’s high rises.

“Pepper,” he says, voice cracking at the second syllable. “Hi, Pepper.”

A palm falls against his shoulder blade, firm, while another settles at the small of his back. She gives him a delicate push.

“Hi, Peter,” she answers. “Inside, please.”

“Not really what you had in mind when you asked me to visit, huh?”

Happy grunts from behind him while Pepper barks out a laugh. “Not really.”

The teenager lets out a wobbly breath, reassuring himself with the silence of his senses. He can still trust himself, somewhat. It’s his first _and_ last line of defense; if he doesn’t have that left, Peter might as well bid his sanity a so long, farewell.

“Everything’s going to be okay, kiddo.”

An incredibly dubious statement if Peter does say so himself – last time _someone_ told him roughly the same thing a purple alien killed him - but he nods anyway. 

_

Pepper had made Morgan wait inside as an extra precaution against any potential threats. The little girl grins big and bright when she sees Peter, just looking _glad_ to see him even with his hair stringy from post-panic sweat and pinkish eyes. It’s a bit of a role-reversal; the first time he’d kneeled in front of her, it’d been because Tony hadn’t been home for days and Morgan, unaccustomed to not seeing her father for more than a few hours, had been agitated, snappish. Peter had settled down next to where she was standing in the dining room, tiny face scrunched up in the beginnings of a breakdown.

Now, it's Morgan tugging at his clothed hand, irises the liveliest brown he’d even seen, guiding him to the couch, anchoring Peter to something without even realizing she’s doing it.

Pepper returns from the kitchen with a small glass of orange juice and a mug of water for Peter before settling down in the armchair. Her gaze falls on Peter, eyes momentarily flickering up to where EDITH is perched on the top his head.

He squirms, just a bit. “I’m sorry,” he says, more out of pure habit than anything else. 

Peter’s only been to space once, but he’s near certain that Pepper is the only one in the universe who can be in the situation they’re in right now and say nothing more than, “Honestly, kid? It happens.”

The CEO of Stark Industries, one of the only people in the world that could have hoped to match Tony Stark’s imposing presence, is not someone who wastes her time. She calls Happy over to take Morgan so that she and Peter can have some privacy and outlines the immediate plan of action. 

“We’re be firmly on your side,” is the first thing she says. “I’m going to help you work through this. The best way to get a handle on the whole situation is to act sooner rather than later, so we’ll have to leak a large piece of counter-evidence within the end of today – otherwise the accusations will really just proliferate. We let the public sit on that for a while, play detective. A few days later, more data, more footage, a statement, whatever.”

This _really_ isn’t Pepper’s first rodeo.

Peter just nods through it all. What she’s saying makes sense – it makes total, perfect sense – but he has no idea where to start.

“The media and the public have to digest it gradually – if we stagger the release of information, keep it consistent, we’ll keep your story at the forefront while inching it towards your favour,” she says. Her face contorts a bit. “I’ve already contacted Fury – he and his team will be helping sort out the more technical things, arrange our case.”

Peter’s not entirely sure if Pepper is freaking out too or if she’s putting on a brave face to keep him calm. She’s using _we_ and _our_ like they’re a team, like he’s somehow less liable than he is, like this is her problem, too. It warms and frightens him all at once.

Logically, he knows he fucked up – but he got the situation contained, the main threat is dead, but there’s still that undercurrent of frustration that arises out of the hard fact that this whole mess could have been avoided in the first place. 

That’s one of the nice things about Pepper; she’s been involved in this superhero business far longer than he has, she’s walked away from Tony, distanced herself from this strange new world when it got too much for her. But she came back on her own volition – she’s one of the few people in Peter’s life that doesn't feel like potential collateral. 

In the temporary quiet that the past few months have graciously offered him, Peter remembers snippets of that horrible battle in the ruins of the Avengers facility against Thanos’ forces. He realizes that where she could have been giving her husband backup, she kept close to him, breaking his falls and standing tall in front of him after a hard knock against his head made his nose bleed and his skull pound.

Thanks to the opportunities he’s had to get to really know Pepper, decipher what makes her tick and what makes her happy, and he thinks he gets why she does the things she does; she’d made her choices, here because she wants to be. She’s not sitting in her living room with a stupid-ass teenage boy, making him drink lemon water to rehydrate out of some sense of obligation or a need to honour the will of her late husband or some bullshit like that.

He really can’t say the same thing for May or Ned, and more recently MJ, as much as they've largely taken the whole Spider-man thing in stride and do their best to be supportive, and –

Oh, shit.

“Wait, wait, wait –” Peter backtracks, raising both his hands even though Pepper hasn’t said a word in maybe half a minute, “Sorry, that’s a really great plan and you’re like literally the best, thank you, but. May and my friends – do you know what’s going on with them right now?”

MJ had shouted at him to bolt when he’d just sat on the lamppost in shock once the broadcast ended. He’d obeyed without a word, mind too frenzied to do much else. Passerby must have seen her talking, _swinging_ with Peter Parker just moments before, right? They’d all have heard her scream at him to run, too.

And he'd just _left_ her there, a sitting duck.

Oh God. Beck knows what school he goes to, the names of his friends, classmates. It’s not out of the question that he might have known who his aunt is, too.

Oh God –

“–eter!” Pepper’s voice cuts through the beginnings of another bout of panic. “Fury’s on it. He’s getting them all somewhere safe.” 

Peter relaxes a bit. Better to have Fury than nothing. “Okay,” he says, slowly. “Uh, can I contact him once he gets a hold of everyone? I want to check if they’re all okay, and – say sorry, I guess.” 

Pepper winces. “I think it’s best if you can’t contact anyone right now,” she explains carefully. “If Beck’s team managed to somehow get their hands on Stark drones and figure out EDITH, well – exists – then there’s a clear security breach. The biggest thing we have to keep safe right now is _your_ location; I’m limiting contact with Fury for the time being so we can’t be traced.”

That makes sense. Everything Pepper says _ever_ makes sense. If it doesn’t, it will eventually. Peter still hates it.

So far, the only contingencies they have is for damage control – they have no long-term plan, Peter’s locked in a lake house for the foreseeable future with no contact with the outside world. Pepper’s seemingly exhausted all she’d been preparing to fill Peter in with and brings her hand to her nose, pinching the skin there and slouching into the cushions. 

“Mood,” Peter says.

It’s okay that he feels bad, right? Who _wouldn’t_ feel bad if they were in Peter’s shoes, not even a fraction guilty? A self-serving sociopath, maybe. Peter promises that he’s not one of those – there’s just the issue of convincing the rest of the world and reminding himself of it too. He’s no use or help to himself or Pepper if he just wallows and bemoans his situation.

“Thank you,” Peter says again. “You’re a lifesaver, like, literally.”

Pepper smiles. “It’s a pleasure.”

“So – what now?” he asks.

“First things first, you’re going to put on something more suitable,” Pepper answers, gesturing to his suit, and then points at the glasses perched in his hair. “Wash up, if you want to, and then we’re going put EDITH to use, okay?”

It’s a sound place to begin. Peter should have figured, but he gets a little lily-white in the face when he hears it out loud.

_

Pepper’s fingers zoom towards the keyboard, hitting the spacebar. The video playing on the desktop screen screeches to a halt and Pepper turns her rolling chair to face the boy sitting next to her.

“Was that a _train_?”

Peter's throat goes tight. He's changed into more comfortable clothes, undoubtedly Tony’s: thinned out and soft. Pepper made no note of the webshooters still firmly bound around Peter’s wrists when he joined her in her study, plugging EDITH into the computer.

He bares his teeth in a sheepish grimace. “Uh. Yeah?”

“You got hit by a _bullet train_?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Peter,” she says, looking like she’s going to boil over and sizzle into vapour. “Holy shit.”

Time for a big fat lie, pour some baking soda on the fire. “I was going to tell you –”

“_You were going to tell me a high-speed train rammed into you_?”

“Um –”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Pepper throws her hands outwards, glaring at Peter. “Did you tell _anyone_?”

“I mean, no, but when Happy came to get me he fixed me up on the jet? We hovered at the edge of town and he gave me some stitches.”

“You didn’t tell anyone,” she deadpans. “Among literally everything else.”

The teenager winces. When she phrases it like that, yeah, it’s pretty bad. He just – didn’t really feel like talking about it. Still would rather not. “It was heavily implied!”

Pepper’s eyes roll back so hard he’s worried the connection between them and her brain will go so taut that they’ll just snap, rendering her blind. “Peter, literally _what_ would bring someone to draw the conclusion that yes, this young man was hit by a train?” 

Damn Pepper and her ability to use rational thought. Peter looks down at his lap, shamefaced. “Um, I think we’re good with the T-word, for now.”

It's half deflection, half a sincere plea to drop the issue – at least for the time being – because Peter knows, okay? The downside of supernaturally high durability and a monstrous healing factor is that he cheats death far more than he probably deserves to. Instead of an instant blackout, months to years of recovery and PT, the toll is nothing more than getting a front-row seat to the roar of wheels against tracks, white-gold tunnel lights flickering past blurring vision and the sickening crack of his own shattering ribs vibrating through his own eardrums. 

Peter leans over, grabs one of her hands, and squeezes. “Pepper,” he says, “I’m okay, now.”

She snorts, skepticism colouring her tone. “Really now.”

“In the absolute, loosest, most generous use of the term, yes.”

She’s trying not to, but her mouth goes crooked as one side of it quirks upwards. She gives his hand a little squeeze back. “You really need to work on your communication skills.”

Silence blankets the room after that, both of them sneaking quick looks ta the image still frozen on the monitor – streaks of gray, too blurry and too fast to really figure out what it is in a single frame.

If Quentin Beck was anything – beyond a manipulator, a massive, self-righteous, murderous fucking _asshole_ – he was meticulous. The simulation he had exposed Peter to at during their confrontation in Germany – Peter had cringed, _hard_, when Beck’s stupid, snakelike voice muttered _Maybe if you were better, Tony would still be alive_ – was one of many. Some had multiple Iron Man suits piling over Spider-man, MJ being choked to death, Peter drowning in swampy, syrupy water. 

Watching them nearly makes him want to cry all over again – seeing the level of detail Beck put into this and how much he knew about Peter is fucking terrifying, but he can’t look away. From the erratic _thump-thumps_ and hitched breaths coming from Pepper, this whole thing is posing a great challenge for her too.

She had been sneaking in commentary here and there - perhaps to keep herself outside of the videos, avoid getting wholly lost in the illusions and forgetting that everything playing in front of her was made-up - expressions of indignation and apologies for what he’d gone through that grew more and more horrified at the sifted through more and more videos. She seems to sense his mounting distress and shakes his shoulder, lowering her voice. “Do you want to stop?”

At that moment Peter realizes his head really is going to collapse in on itself he has to keep doing this. It’s been a long, long day and even though he recognizes the urgency and necessity of getting this over with, Peter thinks he's filled his panic attack quota for the year.

“Y-yeah, yes please,” he whispers. “Yes, let’s stop.”

"You could have told me earlier that the illusions were," she says, looking up at the ceiling, gesturing vaguely at the air, "like that."

Using her feet to drag herself forward, Pepper shifts closer, a cautious but genuine smile decorating her expression. “We’re a team, okay? You and me.”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s fine; we have to use the footage for evidence,” he insists. Then, something in his brain clicks, and he hovers the cursor around 45:49. “Oh! You know, I think the part here - he’s pretty much monologuing and calling me a stupid-ass teenager he’s gonna kill is a pretty good nail on the head, though we shouldn’t release that right away.”

A confused tilt of the head. “How come?”

“Well – Beck clearly still has people in the background if that video of me got released, so they might know I’m EDITH’s only user, now,” he says. “If we release footage right from the get-go to a news source, it’s a dead giveaway it’s me.”

“That’s… a very good point,” she admits. “Okay; we’ll release his old employee files first as a direct statement from SI. Beck might have erased any publicly accessible files on him, but Tony liked to keep backups of everything.”

“EDITH? Can you sync up with FRIDAY, pull everything you can find on Quentin Beck’s history as an employee?”

The screen buffers for a moment before numerous documents begin to pop up: a timeline of progressive discipline, citing Beck’s intentions to repurpose BARF into something potentially dangerous, the most recent of which is a notice for termination. 

Peter pumps a fist in celebration before holding up his palm towards Pepper, expectant. She stares at his hand for a few moments before catching on and gives the boy a high-five.

Score one for his single brain cell and Tony’s excessive paranoia; his silver lining for the day.

_

There was a point in time where Peter would have excitedly welcomed the notion that he was someone connected, even tangentially, to the Avengers, to Stark Industries. Why wouldn't he have? The Avengers were the heroes, had all the cool flashy tech that Peter was determined to understand, maybe one day replicate. He winces at his behaviour back in sophomore year because he'd just been a broken record of Stark Internship this and Stark Internship that while Ned was a massive enabler.

(_"Peter, just _imagine_ the social cred, c'mon!"_)

Then he comes back five years late and DSLRs trail behind him, relentless, wanting every detail and only growing more and more insistent the more flustered Peter became. 

Tony was well-known for being off the fucking rails when he was younger, born under the watchful, expectant eyes of the news, the scientific community, tabloid reporters, and Peter is beginning to think he understands. At his stage of fame, it took sizeable effort to build a private life, experience from an entire line of missteps. 

After viewing EDITH's footage, Pepper smiled at him rather apologetically - which is dumb, because Peter had the option to tell her the contents of said footage and chose against it - even though she's been nothing but helpful. He'd retreated to his room since then, bones aching with frustration, an unnatural pressure in his chest. There's no desire to move, even as his brain screams through the haze of exhaustion to _fix this, fix this now, this cannot be happening - why is this happening_? 

It was bad enough that people had sporadically connected the dots and picked him as the spiritual successor to Iron Man, but now his civilian identity has to be attached to it too? 

If MJ were around, she'd probably say something like how the media's going to treat him like their property. She always tells the truth, after all. 

His story isn't his to tell - it's not his choice whether he wants it shared or not. 

Pepper's choice to gather evidence immediately had been a hard one - not just for him; who wants to watch their husband's legacy and memory turned into some emotional bargaining chip - but it had been the right one. Peter's narrative has been torn out of his hands, but they can win it back. They need to be careful, scrupulous where they can. 

The Tale of Tony Stark met with Peter's. They entwined before Iron Man ran out of string. Even before Mysterio's video, anyone who'd seen sunlight in the past couple months knew this. But they don't know the details, the nuances. Peter does. 

_ 

_("Do you think we could post some pictures? Of me without the suit and Tony?" _

_Whatever Pepper had expected Peter to say after locking himself upstairs for an entire fifteen hours, it had not been that. He doesn't look like he's slept. "A-are... you sure? Because we can, of course, but Peter - would you be ready for what kind of aftermath?" _

_"No," Peter says, shrugging and pouring himself a glass of water. His complexion is dull. "But they'll find out one way or another.")_

_

_(They're working in the kitchens again, this time to potatoes and carrots for a stew. _

_“Hey. Tell me about this MJ character you keep bringing up.”_

_Pepper’s heard of Ned at least a couple times now from their conversations back in the winter. He’s pretty sure he’s named-dropped a Michelle Jones once or twice, but it really hadn’t been until he’d gone back to school that he’d been jackhammered by puppy love. _

_“Oh, we’re, uh, dating.” He thinks. _

_“You don’t sound too certain about that.” _

_“Well. There’s the whole thing with me being suspected of killing a man,” Peter says. In truth, he’s kind of worried that it's a deal-breaker – though of course he’s going to be healthy about it, it’s totally understandable if MJ deciding to date Peter Parker and let him into her life wasn’t the move, but still._

_Peter would really, really rather continue being with her. _

_He takes a moment to gather his thoughts and takes Pepper’s offer to get the stressful things off his mind right now. He hasn’t word vomited in a while, and MJ is a _choice_ topic. He could probably talk about MJ until his larynx shrivelled into a pathetic raisin. _

_“We go to a science and tech school so obviously she’s pretty good at that stuff, but she's an absolute monster English and history. Like, I had AP Lit with her last semester, which is how we got to talking more, I guess, but I swear I looked like an idiot the whole time because any essay I could bullshit out was steaming, boiling garbage next to hers.” _

_Pepper snickers as she drops chunks of food into a strainer and moves to fill a large pot with water. "Sounds like a smart girl."_

_“Oh my God, yeah. She’s so cool. I thought she was kind of mean up until sophomore year – please don’t ever tell her that – but she just needed some time to open up, I guess?” he says. “Oh! Like I asked her what she was reading one time in class and she ended up telling me all about her favourite cold cases from the late 20th century and, like, wow. I think I got heart palpitations or something. She added me back on Insta after that.”_

_This kitchen's got a special place in Peter's heart; it's probably one of the places he feels most settled when he's out here_ _. _

_Despite the lack of any strenuous exercise, Peter's metabolism rivals that of someone several times his size. At the furious growl of his stomach, Pepper offers him, with no lack of amusement, a bowl of fresh goji berries. Peter absentmindedly pops them into his mouth as he details MJ's extensive Goodreads history which he hopes for the sake of his dignity that she doesn't know he refreshes every few days - that's tenth date material.) _

_

The lake house is great. It’s spacious, it’s got a state-of-the-art lab space, a large, well-stocked kitchen and a TV Peter can use to binge whatever he wants but he’s beginning to forget how fresh air feels and the most exercise he’s gotten in nearly two weeks is just a lot of pull-ups and crunches. It’s the best possible place to spend an impromptu house arrest, Peter is indeed super grateful for the prolonged hospitality, but he would rather shave his head bald than stay inside for another minute.

He’s got first-class cabin fever.

Pepper has more than one point of contact to help navigate Peter’s case. Beyond Fury, Pepper had informed Peter that Rhodey's been doing his best to keep all the Avengers on the same page about the situation.

There’s a third person – a mechanics-savvy one. They’d passed each other, fleetingly, during Tony’s funeral. Then he had manifested four days into Peter’s self-imposed exile at the Stark residence with a duffel bag and a shit-eating grin and had been hanging around since then, taking up one of the guest rooms.

Apparently, the end of Harley’s summer semester – for some biological sciences requirement – at MIT had conveniently coincided with Peter being accused of fucking _murder_, so he had some free time to kill.

They’d never spoken before, so at the door, Harley holds out a hand for Peter to shake.

“I’m Harley,” he says. “Some crazy news lately about this Spider-guy circulating around lately – heard anything about it?”

Peter squints at him, their hands still linked while Pepper makes a grumbling noise from next to him. “Harley, please just get in,” she says.

The guy’s smart, and Pepper trusts him wholeheartedly to help with the info leaks, which is the primary reason why he’s here – as an brain to bounce ideas off of. Not too long after Harley’s arrival, however, Pepper also admits that in inviting him directly over, they can stave off the inevitable occasion where Peter loses his marbles. 

There's increasing suspicion that Harley's not taking that part very seriously. 

He's in Peter's room, ringing one of those traditional school-bells, an old thing made out of brass and wood that teachers used to walk down the hallway with to announce the end of instructional hours. Peter’s not sure why he has it, or where he’s gotten it. All he knows is the most important fact: that it’s very, very annoying that Harley is ringing the bell right in his face with total disregard for his eardrums.

It’s been at least four minutes.

“_What_ are you doing?”

“Day twelve,” Harley singsongs. “Give it up for day twelve!”

Oh.

_Dick._

“So you’re just gonna rub it in that I’ve been stuck in here for almost two weeks, huh?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

Peter groans.

Harley is still ringing the bell.

“Oh my God. I _get_ it.”

Harley actually stops. Then he shakes the thing a few more times before he finally takes pity on the poor fugitive spider-mutant-man-boy-thing in front of him and sets it down.

So, Peter’s only really known Harley Keener for a week and a bit more, but somehow the guy manages to feel like a long-time friend. Asshole he may be, Harley is pretty great. Whenever this Mysterio issue ends, Peter hopes that they keep in touch.

He’s headstrong, blunt, and surprising easy to talk to. Peter finds himself chatting with Harley about engineering, about tech, about Tony, playing scrabble and Uno and messing around well into the night. Morgan’s awesome, don’t get him wrong, and they’d made the most out of current unfortunate circumstances to spend some time together bonding, but it was nice to have someone around his age. 

He wishes he’d met Harley sooner.

“Where is that bell even from? I’ve never seen you use it.”

Harley grins, picking it up. It makes him look like a Cheshire cat. “I can go _outside_,” he says, “So this is to announce how long you _haven’t_ been outside, albeit with more – pizzazz. Flair. It’s about _presentation._ I'm your personal clock, your calendar in these trying times.”

Never mind. Harley’s a butthead.

“Dude, fuck you,” Peter says. 

"Yeah, whatever. Get up and actually eat something.”

_

_(“Okay – disclaimer, the I _know_ it's not the case, but sometimes I wonder if I’d done something different that day he’d still be here.” _

_Pepper looks up from her gardening catalogue, pressing her reading glasses higher up her face. “Yeah. Me too.”)_

_

Harley’s getting kind of bored, too, as Peter’s media blackout stretches out, vast and mind-numbingly dull. He starts to throw in ideas as to how Peter can make his grand re-entrance into society.

“Ohhh, _oh_. How about an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. Like, a digital interview?” he suggests.

“Seriously?”

“Well, yeah. Peter, you’re awkward as hell, full offense, and if you do an AmA online you can actually think out your answer and avoid actually interacting with anyone face-to-face.”

Fair point. Peter has a chronic problem with shyness when it came to media and paparazzi that he probably has to overcome now that he’s been fully thrust into the limelight. This would be the best way to, say, ease him into it.

Pepper taps her stylus against her lips. “Well, that’s one of the better things that have come out of this brainstorming session,” she says. “We can hold one after the first press conference.”

Harley crosses his arms, nodding sagely. “It’ll be the best way to put Peter on social media – we’re already on track but being online can really help tweak public opinion. We’re handing out proof, but they _need_ to hear from Peter himself. After that we’ll secure some in-person interviews to keep positive press going,” he says. “So how about it?”

Peter gulps. It’s genuinely the best idea for reintegration they’ve had so far – Harley and Pepper putting their heads together might really get them a long way. “Um. Yeah. Okay.”

Harley whoops. “I’m a genius.”

It’s actually really considerate of Harley to come over and stay with him. Sure, Pepper asked him to come but Harley was the one nice enough to go_ Yeah, sure, why the hell not? _

As far as the public knows, Peter Parker knows no Harley Keener: he doesn’t go to Midtown, he doesn’t share his last name, and he wasn’t right below him when Beck’s video aired. 

(Sorry, MJ.)

And the cherry on the sundae, sprig of basil on tomato soup: he’s from _Nowhere_, Tennessee. They probably have, as a rough estimate, three houses, a trailer, and a single, filthy gas station that sells stale Skittles. It makes him the safest option to visit and stay at the lake house as frequently as he is now.

Harley brushes it off every time Peter tries to bring it up. “I’ve heard enough about you from everyone else,” he had said. “Wanted to see what all the fuss was about myself. 

Pepper’s been very busy sorting out _his_ shit on the public end – God, someone _please_ give that woman a break – while Fury, the persistent asshole, works out the logistics of fully inaugurating him into the Avengers and SHIELD in the background.

It’s… actually going okay. The video is choppy, haphazardly made, and whoever’s been working for Beck obviously _cannot_ be that smart if their news outlet of choice is the Daily Bugle, which is, on a generous day, slightly more reputable than a Snapchat tabloid. Pepper also has a worryingly high amount of experience with public scandal.

Still, it’s best if he lies low for a while longer. Peter’s admittedly still shaken by the whole thing, even given days to cool down somewhere safe and assurances from anyone he’d been in contact with that this mess will come together sooner or later, if EDITH being perched on his head on tucked into his shirt at all times is any indication. He’s not even allowed to turn EDITH on now that they’ve extracted all they need.

The Defense of Peter Parker isn’t simple. Beyond disproving that he hadn’t turned against Mysterio and _proving_ that Mysterio was a straight sociopath, there was also the issue of Peter being sixteen-going-on-seventeen, media outlets digging out every life detail available about the Parker family. 

(The latter of which is pleasantly pretty sparse, because the running theme is always that Tony Stark was one over-prepared son of a bitch that purged any data on Peter Parker beyond basic information about him right after they first met.)

Well. Things get worse before they get better, right?

_

Peter had spoken way too soon.

When he said things get worse before they got better, he hadn’t expected fate to actually follow through with it.

Pepper doesn’t come home one night, and all Peter can do is hold on to Morgan for dear life and run a shaking hand down her back. She’s been really upset, too, and with no time at all it turns into an unfortunate positive feedback loop. The waterworks won’t stop. 

He can’t do jack shit about it either, because Harley’s somehow managed to talk sense into him – Peter’s _strong_, so he has to stay with Morgan and keep her safe, and this may very well be a ploy to lure Peter out prematurely. If he leaves his location will be a dead giveaway. He _can’t_ go outside; at the moment, he’s just a liability.

The worst-case scenarios are running through his mind: Pepper’s been killed or captured because someone knows she’s been housing Spider-man, vouching for him. Morgan’s going to lose both her parents in the span of a year, and she doesn’t deserve to be left behind with some poor excuse of a pseudo-big brother who has 6% of his life together on his best days. 

If Peter had just been more careful, used his fucking brain for just a moment maybe this whole situation might have never happened. He’s such a screw-up. He can’t even properly comfort a little girl because he’s too busy trying to keep it together himself.

Peter groans out a half-shudder, back against the wall. Harley is leaning against his side, silent, there in case Peter dissolves into another anxiety attack, a hand resting on Morgan's shoulder blade. 

After what feels like hours, FRIDAY shatters the terrified quiet of the bedroom. "Colonel Rhodes is at the door."

Harley staggers up, legs probably numb from sitting cross-legged for so long, and leaves the room to head downstairs without a word, leaving Peter alone with Morgan. 

When Harley arrives with Rhodey in tow, Peter still hasn't moved from his spot on the floor.

Both Rhodey and Harley look exceptionally tired but not devastated, and it sends a surge of relief through Peter’s body so strong that he almost recoils. Morgan is limp against Peter’s chest, completely spent from hours of tears, and her face scrunches up from the motion. 

“Is Pepper –”

“She’s okay.”

Peter sags, deflates. “Oh my God.”

Rhodey’s gaze fixates on an unconscious Morgan, nanotech legs carrying him across the room as he settles down next to the two kids. “She would’ve contacted you guys, but – y’know. Gotta be careful.”

Peter sighs, beginning to shake Morgan gently to wake her up, tell her that her mom is okay. “I know, I know. Hey, Rhodey, on a scale of one to ten, how bad do I look right now?”

The older man scans his face – red, blotchy, and eye bags that could sell for 20k _each_ at Louis Vuitton. “A solid eight-point-five, I’d say.”

That’s generously low. Morgan is starting to stir. “Where is she now?”

“In a SHIELD bunker – we figured it’d be best if she stayed there until at least tomorrow, to be safe, and then we’ll clear her to come back. The whole thing resolved itself pretty quickly, to be honest – Pep’s been carrying around some of the Rescue nanites when she goes out, so they didn’t manage to rough her up too much. We caught the guys within the hour.”

Peter nods along, clinging on to the new information as Morgan finally rouses.

“P’tey?” she mumbles, probably too groggy to recall that they’ve both been having a breakdown the whole night.

“Hey, Morgan,” Peter says, “Your mom’s okay. Some bad guys tried to get her, but she was too strong.”

This makes her perk up. “Mommy’s okay?”

Rhodey butts in. “She is. She told me to tell you she misses you, by the way,” he adds, poking her on the forehead to elicit a smile. “She’ll be back before you know it.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Morgan. You mom can beat the shit out of anyone who’ll think of hurting her.”

“Shit,” Morgan echoes, giggling. “That’s mom’s word.”

Peter presses a kiss on her head.

_

The next evening, Pepper is back at the lake house with a black eye and a sprained wrist, but otherwise seems as right as rain. Her good hand holds a grocery bag with trail mix and Morgan’s favourite ice cream flavour. Peter hugs her tight. 

Morgan is glued to Pepper tonight instead sitting with Peter, though the boy hardly blames her.

She’s got a melting bowl of mint chip – _gross_ – in her hands as they watch _Ratatouille_. On the TV Gusteau says, “Anyone can cook,” and Peter almost paws around for his phone to send May a screencap along with the message _u can’t lol_, pouting when he realizes for the billionth time that he’s not allowed to text. He reaches forward to grab a pretzel instead.

Harley kicks him. “Don’t mope,” he chastises, “appreciate the movie. This has a ninety-six on Rotten Tomatoes _and_ Metacritic, okay? Ninety. Six. Do you know how hard that is to achieve?”

“I’m not moping,” Peter says in lieu of addressing the rest of that sentence.

Harley keeps kicking him.

“I hate you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” 

Morgan dozes off around ten, sound asleep in her mother’s lap. With some reluctance, Pepper wakes her so she can brush her teeth and have a cup of water before she goes to bed. As the pair go upstairs, Morgan asks if Peter can come with them so that both him and mom can tuck her in.

Peter watches from the foot of the bed as Pepper smooths out her daughter’s hair and pecks her cheek with a kiss goodnight. He feels a somewhat out of place but Morgan waves at him before he and Pepper flick off the light switch and shut the door. 

When they amble down the steps again, Peter notices that Pepper seems to favour one leg over another and frowns.

“Pepper, you should be holding the rails,” he says, making sure he has his inside voice on. “Does your leg hurt?”

Pepper shrugs. “My ankle is just bruised; no big deal.”

“Hey!” he whispers. “That’s my line – and I can always carry you; it’ll be like holding a bunch of grapes.”

In return, he gets an exaggerated frown, but she grabs the railing anyway.

"I wish I could have helped you out there," he says. It's not an admission of guilt like it would have been not too long ago, maybe even last night when all the emotional progress he'd been through in the past few months nearly tugged out from under him - just a casual, concrete fact, like grass being green. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Pete. It's how you're wired." 

Harley’s cleaned up and disappeared off somewhere, but Pepper gestures for the two of them to sit back down. “I have a few things to talk about,” she tells him.

Peter’s sweating a bit, rubbing the moisture from his hands against his shorts before clasping his hands together on his lap. In the process, his webshooter bracelets, two plain, metal bands around either wrist clink against one another.

Pepper makes a vague hand-motion towards them. “Raring to go, huh.”

At that, he shrugs. He misses being Spider-man like hell, so maybe it’s a symptom of continued semi-isolation that keeps the webshooters perpetually activated and on his person. Otherwise, it’s yet another way to suppress his anxiety. The latter reason is just kind of sad.

“What are we talking about?”

“Spider-man, actually, and your re-involvement as a superhero-slash-Avenger,” she says, tapping her fingers together. “So that was a pretty nice segue, thanks.”

Pepper gets up to dig out a few things from her office and is back just a minute or so later, armed with a stack of papers and a tablet. “I was kept around for a little longer yesterday because an attack on me really – well – cements public opinion in your favour, right? Especially with the work we’ve done to get us to where we are now.”

She walks him through Fury’s proposed plan, insisting he remain stubborn – he’s still a student and a minor, after-all, there should be no expectation of full-time participation in SHIELD work.

For now, the consensus is that EDITH should be kept heavily classified for the time being – Harley, MJ, Ned and May will have to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Some things are already familiar– the modified version of the Accords he’ll probably be bound to. They've have been heavily altered since 2016, the wording of its terms much less… worrying than they had been before. Peter can continue his activities in New York, to the teenager’s great relief, and he’ll be obligation to complete courses in ethics, first aid, including naloxone training, fire and building safety, as well as proper police procedure by his 18th birthday.

“You can do a lot of it online or by modules, though you’ll definitely need to attend actual sessions for first aid.”

Peter nods along. The terms make sense, and Pepper gives him a highlighter to mark things he feels iffy about or doesn’t understand all the way, because legalese can make anyone’s head swim.

For now, he’s on the reserve roster for the Avengers – and that’s probably for the best, considering his other commitments and the fact that he’s at the age where most people first try out for a driver’s license. He’ll be called over pretty much only in big emergencies, though Pepper says Fury promised nothing when Peter had time off from school.

Things settle further into place, and Peter suddenly feels excited to jump back into action, more ready to navigate this new world in front of him.

There’s no doubt it’s going to be tough and even annoying as hell, but he’s grateful for even being given the chance.

When it’s his and Pepper’s time to turn in for the night, he tucks EDITH into her case and places that into a drawer, out of sight. He keeps his armbands on.

(One thing at a time.)

_

Rings sound through the house the next morning.

“Give it up for day twent-”

“Harley, I will shatter your kneecaps.”

_

Pepper’s on a self-imposed lockdown too, now – at least until the end of the week – just in case. Peter is all for it, and it’s definitely a smart idea for her to stick to Morgan after, well. Everything.

Harley’s due to head back to home to spend time with his younger sister, but he promises to come back for Peter’s birthday party which Pepper had pretty much strong-armed him into holding. Once she assured him she could probably arrange for his aunt, Ned and MJ to come over too, he’d been quite easy to convince.

_(“How about we have the party after my actual birthday, though? Like, maybe from the 12th-15th as our date range?”_

_“Can I ask… why?”_

_“Isn’t my birthday public knowledge now? What if they’re being, I don’t know, super vigilant that day? What if they’re expecting something and decide to give me a super fucked up birthday surprise? We could throw them off just by using the wrong date.” _

_“Peter, we’ve neutralized every threat, I promise.” _

_Okay. Time for puppy eyes. “Pep, it’s _my_ birthday, here.”_

_Pepper squints at him, and then holds her arms up in surrender. “_Fine_,” she relents, “but it is straight to therapy once this is over – I’m serious._”)

Otherwise, August is in full swing. He’s been in here since early-to-mid July and Peter’s gotten to the stage where he’ll eat plaster from the walls if it means it’ll make him less stir-crazy. Strange example, yes, but appropriate. Everything about his life is strange. The lake house isn’t even made out of plaster. It's a cabin, it's wood-based.

The expectation that he’ll _finally_ be able to see everyone else is keeping him sane. He doesn’t think he’s felt this excited about anything since he and MJ started planning their first date on their flight back to the States and he could feel Brad glaring a hole at the back of his head four rows down.

On August 10, his actual birthday, right at midnight, Pepper knocks on his door. Peter springs up from his bed to let her in.

“Hey, Pete, happy birthday,” she says. “Seventeen, huh?”

He smiles, big and light. “Thank you.”

“I know it’s not when you actually intend to celebrate, but I think you’ll like this –” She digs for something at her back pocket.

It’s a Stark phone. The newest model, a sleek, sophisticated black with a silver rim.

“Oh my God, finally,” Peter says, yanking the device out of her hand. “Hell yeah.”

Pepper smiles at his enthusiasm. “Fury cleared you for calling and texting this morning. The SIM card’s already in, and I’ve given May and your friends your new number, okay?” she says. “Go nuts, kiddo.”

Peter, still gripping his new phone, hoists Pepper up with no warning. Her feet lift off the ground and his grip doesn’t go slack until she weakly taps at his waist and lets out a winded choke.

“Oh, my bad,” he says, putting her down.

“All good,” she answers, still catching her breath. “I’m gonna head off, now – go talk to everyone, I’m sure they’re still up.”

Peter salutes her as she heads back to her own room. 

He doesn’t actually turn it on the second he’s alone; he spends a few minutes psyching himself up – _all threats are neutralized; all threats are neutralized_ – and digs around for EDITH to run a scan of the phone and his surroundings.

_

_Chat thread: May_

**May** [16:32] Honey! Hello! I miss so, so much.

[16:33] I hope you’re hanging in there, too. I know life has been dealing bad cards as of late and it’s been crazy on our end, too. None of this is your doing, okay? Please don’t blame yourself for what Beck did.

[16:34] If he was still alive I’d rip off his skin and hang it to dry from our window

[16:34] Larb you :)

**May** [15:00] By the way, I’m coming over early. I know you scheduled for the 12th for everyone to come over, but do you expect me to wait any longer??

[15:02] Pepper told me you’re being very paranoid

[15:03] But it’ll just be me and I’ll be escorted by TONS of security, so please keep your head from exploding

_Chat thread: Ned (og spidercrew)_

**Ned** [15:23] oh finally

[15:24] this kitchen’s not the same

[15:24] without youuu

[15:24] this grill is not a home

[15:25] thIS IS NOT THE STOVE I KNOW

[15:27] i hope ur ok dude i’m so excited to see u again!!

**Ned** [15:34] here’s a video of me looking sad because i miss you. look i’m even crying a tiny bit

[15:35] [video]

_Chat thread: MJ_

**MJ** [16:55] hey loser

[16:55] i miss you a lot. i’m sorry all this stuff happened to you

[16:56] among other things

[16:57] your life is wild

[16:58] it’s nuts out here too fury made me stay at some secure location for a while since i was seen with you

[16:58] it was fine though, just for a week or so, and i was with your aunt. she’s really cool, way cooler than you

**MJ** [15:03] see you soon

**MJ** [15:10] <3

_Chat thread: Harley (spiderman sux)_

**Harley** [16:59] [photo]

[16:59] see. we have TWO gas stations

_Chat thread: unknown number_

**?** [19:46] you’ve been spiderman this WHOLE time??

[19:47] how are you even supposed to stan someone you know irl

[1:01] flash how did you get my number

_

A kitchen ban is ordered against Peter the day before the party. It’s practically impenetrable because Morgan’s been assigned to guard the entryway, though the girl has loose lips and lets it slip that they’re making him a cake for tomorrow.

That’s incredibly sweet – literally – but Peter just wants a glass of juice from the fridge. Even May can go in, and Peter’s pretty sure that’s a cardinal sin.

Peter’s sulking must get to Morgan because she tells him to be good – _promise not to move!_ – and dashes off before returning a minute later with a pair of juice pops: one for herself and one for him. They bump popsicles before digging in.

_

Pepper was somehow able to carve the, frankly, massive cake – enough for nine whole people – into something vaguely spider-shaped and Peter’s not even surprised because there’s literally nothing this woman can’t do. Everyone gathers around him to sing in celebration while Peter feels his face flush.

There's a tripod and a camera on the other end of the table Happy had dug up from the basement lab - Tony had gotten pretty big on taking pictures the good old traditional way, who would've figured?

(The pictures of his family littering the house dampen the surprise a little, but it still makes Peter feel fuzzy all over.)

Even as a employee to SI for God knows how many years, Peter needs to get up and help Happy set the timer.

In Happy's defense, the print on the buttons are faded to hell, so it should be kind of hard to figure out how to work the thing without some trial and error. Peter manages to set the timer for ten seconds as muscle memory kicks back in so quickly he has to blink a couple times.

The device is a D800E Nikon that, judging by the dents on the end and distinct crack through the screen, is not from some random dad hobby he'd picked up, nor just a thing among the clutter of the rest of Tony's tech. It's _Peter's_ camera, had been Ben's before he passed away. In the frenzy of the past few months, he hadn't even noticed it was gone among the boxes and boxes of possessions returned to him.

The group smiles at the camera and the shutter clicks with a flash. 

He blows out his candles – many of them crooked and a pastel pink because Morgan had done the honours as the candle-stabber - and makes a wish. 

Ned snickers as they cut up the legs first. They serve Peter the spider’s head.

“That’s cannibalism,” Morgan says, enunciating the last word slowly and earning her a high-five from MJ. Peter rubs a finger against the fissure of his camera and takes a photo of the two girls. 

After dinner they all gather around the lake house’s living room for a movie, though Harley, Ned and MJ decide to go to the side for a few rounds of scrabble while Peter resumes his catch-up with May, nephew and aunt curled into each other, in their own world. 

In three days, he’s due to go back outside, show up at a media event. And, for the first time, he’s cautiously optimistic that things will go fine, even if Spider-man and Peter Parker are no longer separate entities. To the people he loves most, he’s both; he and Spider-man are one.

_

Peter’s alive, breathing, sentient.

A whole life ago, Tony had dropped into his and May’s apartment – "You know what I think is really cool? This webbing. That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?"

(“Who else knows? Anybody?”

“Nobody.”)

_(He second guessed everything he ever did. The one thing Tony didn't second guess was picking you.)_

He’s been him his whole life. He has the power to stop bad things from happening – so he will. It’s on him, otherwise.

Tony had looked at him, pensive, when his fourteen-year-old, pizza pun t-shirt clad self had said that.

Then, he invited Spider-man to Germany, and without really intending to, Peter Parker went along for the ride too. 

_

He’s got really great friends. A really great family.

Tony was right. He’s going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had this saved as a draft yesterday and accidentally had it posted up for 10 mins or so before it was ready......................... hope no one saw that ..........................................
> 
> anyway as always thank you for reading. if you have thoughts let me know! i love thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> hhhh i feel like this?? sort of falls flat lol idk about the pacing through this whole thing. & i live in fear of purple prose. BUT this is an avenue that i think has a lot of potential so why not explore it
> 
> if this was a good read, please lmk because i love comments lol thank you for reading


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